Broadcasting Live From Inside An Eldritch Horror Game

Chapter 75: To The Royal Capital We Go! Part-5.

As both of them were free at the moment, for the rest of the night Xinran imparted a lot of knowledge about the royal capital to Zephyr; meanwhile, he made tea for her several times during the entire process.

Xinran not only explained the basic situation of the royal capital to Zephyr; she even told him about miasma in detail.

From what she told him, Zephyr finally grasped one crucial point about miasma and that no matter how high your resistance is to miasma, there is still a chance of getting affected by it.

Higher resistance to miasma only makes one less prone to being corrupted; it doesn’t give you ’immunity’ to corruption.

When Zephyr asked if she knew of a way to get immunity to corruption, Xinran only laughed and shook her head before saying,

"No existence, be it living or non-living, be it a demon or an angel, is immune to miasmic corruption because the ’Law’ of ’Miasma and Corruption’ is as equally powerful as the ’Law’ of ’Mana’ is, and it exists as a rule of nature!"

"Just like how even Elves that have long life-spans ultimately succumb to death and cannot ignore the natural order, no being in the universe can be completely immune to miasmic corruption!"

The reason behind it was very simple.

Every creature in the world has their own independent thoughts and their own dreams and goals that they want to achieve in life; even beings in the universe have some desires that they wish to fulfill, and no one is an exception to this.

Even a newborn child cries for the embrace of its mother, and even the most heartless people of the world hold desires of their own, be it fame, wealth, or power.

In other words, as long as a person has a goal or dream in their life, as long as they have a ’Path’ of their own, that person can never be fully immune to miasmic corruption because they have a ’desire’ in their heart that they wish to achieve.

Unless someone is truly free of all mortal desires and dreams and is completely out of the grasp of the ’laws’ of nature, causing them to have no connection with the world or any ’Paths’ of existence, they can never be immune to miasmic corruption!

If there’s mana, if there’s will to live, if there’s a wish to improve, miasma will also exist at all times.

This is the natural world order and one of the cruellest truths of this universe!

’Although I get it that it’s really impossible for someone to be immune to miasma, strangely enough, I feel that there’s more to it.’

’I have a hunch... I feel that someone that is immune to miasmic corruption might actually exist somewhere out there in the vast cosmos.’

Perhaps Zephyr subconsciously wanted to believe that there was no way that miasma was a completely indomitable existence with no equals, or perhaps he was just desperate to find hope.

But he was not going to take Xinran’s words to heart, at least not until he himself confirmed that what she said was really true and an irrefutable fact.

’Aside from miasmic corruption and its various abilities, the information about the royal capital is no less shocking...’

According to Xinran, due to the high density of miasmic corruption in that place, the very ’laws’ of the ’world’ had become suppressed to such an extent that even the basic elementals like ’light,’ ’wind,’ ’water,’ etc. didn’t exist in that corrupted land anymore.

Mana and miasma cannot tolerate each other’s existence, so once miasma manages to hold an area in its grasp firmly, mana is pushed away along with all of the phenomena that are associated with the manifestation of mana, like the elementals.

Even demons, which are closely associated with miasma, live in a perpetual state of torment from miasmic rot building up inside their body and soul.

From this, it was clear that miasma was harmful to everything and everyone; it couldn’t even spare its own direct children, let alone others.

’Sigh, the more you know about it, the more you realize how horrific this world actually is...’

’The most terrifying thing is that the threat of corruption becomes higher the stronger a person becomes! I truly didn’t expect that!’

Xinran and Layla had both praised Zephyr for awakening mana and becoming stronger; moreover, using mana to resist corruption was feasible to some extent, so Zephyr was completely taken aback when Xinran told him about this matter.

His first reaction was shock and doubt, but Xinran’s next words completely shattered her worldview and opened his eyes to the reality, making him understand how ignorant he was.

"The stronger an individual becomes, the more they attract the favour of the ’Law’ of ’Mana,’ and the more someone is favoured by Mana, the more they would be hated by the ’Law’ of ’Miasma and Corruption’..."

"You can basically consider miasma as a semi-conscious existence that can sense and even adapt accordingly to the changes in the environment and the world."

"If a person is more favored by mana, they would become a prime target for corruption too; miasma would often try to incite them to take the wrong ’Path’ and degenerate!"

Miasma was fully capable of misleading people with weaker minds, spreading misinformation, creating chaos, and making new ways of causing mass destruction and degeneration.

Once targeted by corruption, you would always have to live a life of constant alert; you would have to keep walking your own ’Path’ and make sure not to take a wrong turn or abandon your dreams midway.

A single mistake would give miasma enough opportunity to drag you into an endless cycle of hell, and it would be impossible to escape from miasma’s grasp.

According to Xinran, there have been no records of a person ever being able to escape the grasp of miasmic corruption once affected by it.

Thus, it wouldn’t be wrong to say that the ’Path’ that a person has to follow to reach their ’Destination Point’ is filled with hardships and traps that could easily throw one off-road.

The very dream of pursuing greater strength was an act similar to walking on the edge of sanity and insanity at the same time!

’In the future, while ascending to higher realms as fast as possible, I must make sure to polish my mind and keep a firm grasp over my sanity...’

’Although I have high resistance to miasmic corruption with the help of the ’Obelisk,’ I do not want to bet on life. It is better to be safe than sorry...’

The biggest reason for Zephyr’s concern was that Xinran had told him that now he was the master of the ’Obelisk’ and had a status equal to a ’hero.’

Miasma particularly hates people that have high resistance to it, and it likes tormenting those that have more to lose.

Layla was the best example of it; throughout her life as a ’hero,’ being attacked by miasma and corruption was basically an everyday occurrence for her!

She was marked by miasma and hated by corruption to the point that horrible miasmic outbursts would happen around her everywhere she went, forcing her to live a life of constant alert.

Even when sleeping, even when injured, she had to keep her mind and emotions in check all the time; a single slip-up was enough to send her tumbling down into the arms of miasma and rot!

And now that the ’Obelisk’ is in Zephyr’s possession, miasmic corruption will not take long to realize the threat he possesses and will surely cause troubles for Zephyr in the future.

Although Zephyr felt a bit unhappy that he now had a super-powered, super-dangerous killer tailing his back, he knew that this situation was unavoidable.

To gain something, you need to provide an equal sacrifice; there are no such things as free lunch in the world.

Even the powerful system takes belief points as its compensation, let alone anything else.

’Well, at least I can now fight corrupted beasts without fear; that is already a big progress...’

Zephyr didn’t know how Layla was going to handle the problem of losing her high miasmic resistance, but he didn’t care about it, as it was of no concern to him.

What mattered the most right now was to head towards the royal capital and find more details about this world.

’I really hope that Xinran’s plan works... A chance to go deep into miasmic territory and investigate in detail will likely not come again for a long long time for me...’

Zephyr had already promised to himself that he would explore the world and find the truth of this horror-infested game.

If the plan this time didn’t succeed, he will have to roam around in this abominable sea of ash like an aimless wanderer similar to Xinran and Layla for a long time.

It could be years or perhaps even decades!

Unlike Layla and Xinran, Zephyr was an ordinary human; he was weak, and his sanity had a limit.

Zephyr dared not guess what might happen to his mind if he kept wandering around in this cursed land for decades or even centuries!